


My Dizzy Dreamer, There You Are

by OkProblematic



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Niall gets tattoos, artist!niall, writer!zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:05:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OkProblematic/pseuds/OkProblematic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His boy doesn’t know when it happened; Zayn thinks it just did. Niall had never really spoken of why he didn’t want a tattoo, and Zayn hadn’t thought anything of it; some people just aren’t tattoo people. So when Niall comes to him with wide eyes and words deeper that the fucking ocean and tells him why, tells him that he’s ready, Zayn can’t tell him no.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Dizzy Dreamer, There You Are

His boy doesn’t know when it happened; Zayn thinks it just did. Niall had never really spoken of  _why_  he didn’t want a tattoo, and Zayn hadn’t thought anything of it; some people just aren’t tattoo people. So when Niall comes to him with wide eyes and words deeper that the fucking  _ocean_  and tells him why, tells him that he’s ready, Zayn can’t tell him no.

—

Zayn lives in a soft world with his rough edges and a bleeding heart. He lives in this easy world with his hard eyes and cigarette burned lungs. But he can’t mind living in this world and its happy people and it’s good ideas with his sad brain and his bad intentions because Niall is here, Niall lives in this world too. Zayn can’t be upset because Niall is his splash of colour in this stupidly dull world. Niall is a drop of yellow paint in the misty streets and Zayn thinks that’s the right colour, but he doesn’t know for sure; Niall is the artist not him.

He is a terrible writer with bricks in his veins, heavy heavy with the weight of his love for this little blonde boy who makes him lie down on their cold floor to paint his back with wide expanses of oceans and beaches and mountains and galaxies. Zayn wishes he had to words to describe the way Niall makes him feel but he thinks they don’t exist.

Because he is not drowning, nor is his suffocating; his lungs don’t burn and his heart isn’t sore. Zayn’s not sure how Niall makes him feel, but he’s sure he’ll figure it out eventually, even if he is only able to do it with his head underwater or with blood in his teeth.

He doesn’t figure it out for a week and two days.

—

It’s raining again, the streets are covered in the wetness of it, dull and grey and Zayn feels like he’s at peace with the world for once. There’s mist covering most of the ground so he can’t really see all the tiny little people below as they shuffle and shriek and run from the sky’s tears. He knows that Niall is just behind him, bustling away in their little kitchen and digging around for things they’re going to need for when the power inevitably goes out.  

Zayn can hear the fat drops as they hit the roof and the windows behind him. He can’t even be bothered to go back inside and grab his jumper even if it is bitingly cold outside and he really can’t afford to get sick. He finishes his cigarette and drops the ashes over the railing, having to lean out far enough that he gets his hand wet. He drops the cigarette next.

There’s smoke as grey as the sky in his lungs and he can’t seem to let it go, wants to hold it there forever and hope it never leaves (he’d also kind of like to do the same thing to Niall). He wonders how long he’d have to hold it there and only breathe shallowly before it corrupted his lungs and ate them from the inside out. Zayn doesn’t think Niall would want him to find out on his own.

Niall comes through the balcony doors then, doesn’t say anything as he grabs Zayn by the back of his sweater and tugs him back inside; doesn’t say anything as he pulls Zayn from his thoughts before he gets too deep in the words to see properly anymore. It’s odd, because Niall is a man of words, he likes to talk and talk and laugh and giggle but Zayn is the writer here, Zayn is the one that can’t make words happen and they’re always so rubbish when he does.

The younger boy sighs quietly as Zayn as they stumble to the couch, falling back on it, squished together and Zayn could almost laugh at them. Niall does, he lets out a soft little chuff and a hiccup before curling into Zayn and breathing in the fresh scent of smoke. Zayn wonders if Niall’s lungs are as dark and dirty as his.

Niall mumbles into his collarbones, whispers against his fragile bones and it sounds like his name, said in leaves and crisp fall air, “Zayn.” Zayn can only hum gently at him, wrap an arm around his slim little waist and rub circles into his back with a dirty thumb, “I want,” Niall swallows, “I want to get a tattoo.”

And Zayn, well, Zayn doesn’t know what to do with himself; he knows this is a big deal to Niall for the boy has no tattoos. He wants to know  _why_ , mostly.  _Why_ all of a sudden?  _Whywhywhy_? He lets the words fall from his lips, sugar sweet, “How come, baby?”

Niall sighs and his words are honey soft, pale yellow in a blinding sun, “Everybody gives their body to something; some people give their bodies to each other, kind of like we have, and some people give their bodies to science. I want to give my body to art; I want to ink my skin with words, not colours like you’ve done.”

And oh.

“What – what words did you have in mind, Niall?” Zayn knows somewhere deep in his head that his face isn’t the prettiest right now, what with how confused and bent his eyebrows must be and how his mouth is still hanging slightly open.

“Yours.”  

And Zayn thinks he’s figured it out. It’s the way Niall says his name; the way Niall says  _yours_  and  _you_  and _mine_. It’s the way Niall says  _Zayn_ , high and whining in bed, breathy and panting on the couch, stupid and giggly in the kitchen. It’s the way Niall tacks it on to the end of tired  _I love you_ ’s.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself, most times, and now is one of them because he doesn’t know what to say to Niall, has no idea what to say to the little boy who holds all of his secrets and who holds his heart between his teeth.

They don’t talk about it anymore because Zayn’s done nothing but stared since Niall told him what he wanted, done nothing but blindly watch Niall breathe slowly, nervously. He’s not sure when it happened but he’s suddenly in Niall’s lap and they’re kissing, lips brushing together loudly in the quiet of their living room.

Zayn knows he’s making soft little noises, desperate for Niall’s body on his, for Niall above him and fucking him into their mattress. He’s desperate for Niall’s hands on his arse like they are now, groping and grabbing the skin there. He whines high in his throat and Niall parts to giggle at him and then carry him to their bed.

When it’s said and done and both boys are left side by side on their backs, panting with flushed chests Niall says, “Guess you liked that idea, huh Zaynie?” with a little laugh that’s more of a chuckle than anything and Zayn can feel the blonde smiling even if he’s not looking.

Zayn can only nod at him, make a soft pleased humming sound.

—

Three days later,  it’s something like 2:56 in the morning and Zayn is sitting on their counter licking frosting off a spoon because Harry had dropped off cupcakes and all the extra frosting (courtesy of Louis) earlier in the day and Niall had woken up and dragged Zayn to sneak them out of the fridge. He’s sure that his legs are seconds from smacking the counter draws and Niall will kill him if he wakes the cat.

His arse is still sore from yesterday afternoon and his pajamas are bunched up so that they’re above his ankles but he can’t be arsed to move them (he doesn’t even want to be wearing them because he doesn’t believe in pajamas. But Niall does, so he wears them).

Niall moves to stand between his thighs, giggling because he’s somehow managed to get frosting on his nose. Zayn smiles tiredly and holds Niall’s face still with freezing fingers as his slowly licks it off. The blonde still smiles above him and Zayn noses along his collar bones, mumbles words into pale skin.

“My hands are colder than the winters here and they shake when I bring cigarettes to my lips. Those are cold too, sometimes, smoke curling in the shadowy dawn. And if I look hard enough, I’ll see the grey turn into the frozen blue of your eyes. But you, you are forever warm to me; you are always my portable heater even when your eyes are ice and even when you don’t know it.”

It reminds Niall of the first time Zayn had laid him down, whispered words into fresh skin. Kisses pressed into every hallow and every jut of white bone, a thought for every sense and Niall had wished that it would never end, that this beautiful boy with type-writer ink staining his fingertips would never let him go.    

Niall runs his hands through Zayn’s hair and tugs at the strands until the older boy moves to look up at him. They kiss then, Niall pressing himself against Zayn and licking the taste of frosting out of his mouth with practiced movements and little whines in their empty kitchen. He’s still gripping Zayn’s hair in the back, just as Zayn still has a hand on his face, the other coming around to pull him close by his back.

“My boy, my pretty boy with words for a brain and ink for a mouth,” There’s a hand on Zayn’s jaw, just as warm as he knew it would be, “guess you’re rubbing off on me then, yeah Zee?”

“Haven’t rubbed one off on you yet, you’ll see.”

Niall’s laugh is loud and surprised and Zayn thinks it feels like being hit with bullets that disintegrate after they make contact because he know that there’s no way he’s ever going to get Niall out of his system.

—

Zayn doesn’t know much but he does know that Niall is something else. He knows that Niall is a sun tamed by a moon with a dirty surface, one that needs to be constantly dusted or it’ll darken the skies and dampen the mood. Zayn knows he is a moon.

Niall is the painter with nothing but colours in his life, he is full of nothing but the brightest of palettes and the richest of colours. He is neon and exciting, loud in a quiet room. He knows how to fill the silence with laughter and smiles and Zayn doesn’t know what to do when that happens because that is not the Niall he lives with.

The Niall Zayn lives with come from the studio with colour on his cheeks and fingers rubbing at his tired blue eyes. The Niall Zayn lives with talks quietly and grips tightly, he knows what Zayn needs and he knows how to love a person. The Niall Zayn lives with paints him in the colours of the winter during the dead of the summer.

Zayn had asked why once,  _why_   _do you paint me in such sad colours baby?_ , and he’d gotten a kiss pressed to his forehead, a chuck under his chin, and a smile hidden in his shoulder.

_You’re a sad person and you’re cold like the winter, too skinny, you are, and you’re the only person I want to use maroon and midnight and forest on. You’re the secret hidden in my chest and even if you think I am the sun, my heart is not and I’m afraid it’s terribly dark in there._

_—_

Niall comes home one day and he goes straight to where Zayn is sitting on the floor in the kitchen, pencil in his hand, surrounded in papers, and a smear of charcoal on his cheek. He kisses Zayn’s forehead and tells him sorry.

“For what?” He’s got his brows furrowed and Niall is sure he hasn’t shaved for days but can’t find it in himself to mind that Zayn is in the same spot Niall left him in this morning and the morning before.

“I used your colours today. In the studio.” He bites his lip like he expects Zayn to be mad and maybe he should be because they have promises and quiet words but he’s not; he’s not in his right mind anyways.

“Oh. Okay. Why?” And Zayn’s not sure what’s the right thing to say; even if he’s the one with the book for a tongue and Niall has paint brushes for hands, Niall has always been better at words, at Zayn.

“I painted something and I thought of you when I did it, even if it’s not you. I know I said I only used your colours here, with you, on you, but I just had to do it. I’m sorry.” He’s still biting his lip and Zayn kind of wants to kiss him.

“Well, okay. That’s okay. C’mere,” he holds up a hand and pulls Niall down next to him, “wanna kiss you.”

Niall lets himself be kissed for a few minutes before getting back up and telling Zayn that he has to go get the painting from the car so the elder can see it. He comes stumbling with a rather large canvas in his hands, the back facing out and Zayn scrambles up to see it.  

Fuck.

There’s a rib cage on the page, one entwined with the dying plants of the winter, pale and dark and terribly beautiful. The flowers are drooping and the bones look fragile, not white but rather a pale yellow and they’re cracked, bruised in places and this picture is so beautiful that Zayn doesn’t know what to do with himself. There are splashes and splotches of deep blue in the background, bits and pieces of himself all around it and so he smiles.

He smiles and Niall’s shoulders relax and he lets Zayn pull him close, tucking the picture against the counter and reaching to hug Zayn back. They’re quiet for a moment and Niall looks over Zayn’s shoulder to find that the papers on the floor are nearly empty, realizes that Zayn has done nearly nothing for days, it seems. But he can’t care because Zayn’s smiling in his arms and his boy is tapping his fingers and grinding his jaw like he does when he’s got an idea so he lets go.

Zayn steps back and his eyes are sparkling, lips shining and Niall kind of wants to know how something so sad can make him so happy. He says his words so carefully, too, walking on cracked ice, as if he could say the wrong thing at any moment.

“Niall, you’ve painted me without drawing me at all,” Niall blinks owlishly at him, bright blue eyes wide in confusion, “I am made of fragile bone and the decaying beauty of the winter, I am nothing more than the sad dreary thoughts of a writer with letters for fingers and a typewriter for a brain. But you, you have made me tragically beautiful, you’ve recreated me in the low lights of a world too dark and you’ve taken my heart out of my chest.

“I’ve figured it out because you are everything and I feel like you wear a crown of daisies around your head while mine is made of dripping blood roses and the hopes of writers past. But you make that beautiful. You make me seem like I am a part of this world, sad in the best of ways because I am the winter and my heart in a cage of brittle marrow, yellow and going soft because I am dying without the sun inside of me to keep the flowers of my lungs alive.

“But you are the sun and sometimes I think we fucked up somewhere and now your heart is in my chest cavity because I don’t feel so dead anymore and the vines around my organs are only getting looser as they grow, no longer constricting and browning in death.”

Niall blinks up at Zayn before taking his face in his hands and kissing him, pressing their lips together over and over again, thinking of quiet words whispered in their kitchen. When he speaks it’s just as quiet, just as think with an emotion he’s long since forgotten the name to.

“I want that. I want that tattooed on my body, Zayn. That’s it. Those are the words I want.” Zayn’s got a gentle hand on Niall’s jaw, thumb rubbing the skin there.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall nods quickly with his words, making sure this is what he wants before Zayn can even ask, “Yeah.”

And Zayn can only smile at him.

—

A week later they come stumbling in the door laughing and elbowing each other until Niall moves his shoulder too high and winces. Zayn laughs at him before the tumble over to the couch and flop down, tired from their long day in the shop.  

Zayn’s freezing fingers skate along the ridges of Niall’s spine under his shirt, careful to avoid the plastic wrap of the tattoo. Sometimes, Niall thinks Zayn could be warm, one day, if he just sat next to the heater long enough and held his hands closer to the fireplace. Right now though, Zayn’s fingers are icicles on his back, chilling his spine to the core and he wonders if he’ll freeze like this, if he’ll be stuck sitting on Zayn’s lap forever. He can’t he’d mind.

It gets to the point where Zayn gets needy, touch starved, and so he takes Niall’s shirt off, kisses the corner of pink lips when Niall hisses because he’s moved his shoulder too high. Zayn grin toothily at him anyways. Niall smiles back and tries to look over his shoulder at the bandage, laughs because he’s sure he looks stupid but doesn’t say anything, only lets himself be turned around so they can clean it, as asked.

There’s a leftover laugh caught somewhere in Zayn’s throat and he doesn’t know what to do with it, can only smile and hope Niall does something funny for him. Niall doesn’t, so Zayn ends up laughing when Niall hisses as they apply the alcohol to the ink, and Zayn gets a fluffy-haired glare in return; it only makes him laugh more.

**_But you are the sun and sometimes I think we fucked up somewhere and now your heart is in my chest cavity because I don’t feel so dead anymore and the vines around my organs are only getting looser as they grow, no longer constricting and browning in death._ **

—

Zayn comes home with a new tattoo a week after that. He comes home with plastic wrap all the way around his ribs, wrapped carefully around his chest. Underneath it is something he hopes Niall will like; it is for his dizzy dreamer anyways.

Inked slowly around Zayn’s chest is a thin line of a decaying vine, brown and green and faded, coloured with the messiest of water colours because those are Niall’s favourite. Attached to the stem is a small spattering of flowers, slight little things that are dark against his skin, drooping and dying and merely hanging on for their lives. Some of them are nothing but buds, little flowers that never even got to live and Zayn thinks it’s beautiful.

He shows Niall when the boy gets home and Niall looks between his chest and the floor one too many times and Zayn is afraid. Afraid that he’s gone too far, that this is too much, that this is more than Niall wanted. Mostly, he’s afraid that he’s got everything done in the wrong colour because he knows Niall loves Zayn, but he lives for colours.

Niall traces it with a soft, paint stained finger before standing up and taking Zayn’s jaw in the palm of his hand, looking Zayn in the eyes before whispering, “You’re beautiful,” and kissing his boy.

Zayn pretends that’s exactly what he was expecting and kisses back with everything his has and when they part, Zayn hisses because he’s gone and moved too much now, what the fuck, and Niall cackles at him, giggles until his face is red and he’s breathing heavy. Zayn only pouts at him until Niall kisses him again.

—

Over time, Niall ends up with more tattoos, all of words whispered in the night, sometimes into his neck sometimes into the bony lines of his hips. They don’t talk about it much because all that happens is Zayn says something Niall likes and Niall wants to get it inked into his skin, so he can keep it forever.

On the days when it rains, he’ll make Zayn read every line and ever thought in his skin and they’ll laugh as they remember how each one came about before they go to bed in the tent they’ve gone and made in their living room.  

On the other days, Zayn lies on the floor in their kitchen and writes until his hands are sore, until there are pages all around him that have pointless doodles and pieces of works that will never be finished, until there is nothing left for him to write but his bare soul on the page, but only part of it because most of it already belong to Niall.

His latest work is the story of him and Niall, of the way they met and the way the fell into this bubbling pot of something beautiful, something toxic and dangerous, something that so many people fear and how they’re scared too, but it doesn’t matter because they’ll be side by side. It’s the story of the artist that covers his skin with words and the writer that covers his with pictures. It’s the story of how they fell in love, two boys with dirty hands and purple sand for blood.

Niall tattoos that on his skin too. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are Love! Also bottombitchboys one tumblr!


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